


Red

by shinesurge



Category: Kidd Commander (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-11 08:24:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17443382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinesurge/pseuds/shinesurge
Summary: warm today,





	Red

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to do something short with the old folks.

"One more."

"We already _did_ one more." Phineas pouted. She actually stomped her foot, which was impressive, seeing as Crow had already run them to bleeding in an attempt to get her to wear some god damned shoes. He'd decided to do their drills in the gravel road by the sunflower patch today, sure it would put an end to this argument that had been gathering inertia for the last month. He had expected Phineas either to quietly put on the little boots Jo bought for her, or object, where he'd issue an ultimatum. Phin did neither, instead going along with Crow's order without question. There was red on the rocks now, and it was definitely pride at her determination and not guilt that he felt in his chest.

Phineas was still glaring up at him, her face dark with dirt and sweat and framed by flyaway hair. The trees were full of cicadas this time of year and the smothering air was thick with their screaming, but the commanders in the unpaved road were quiet. Crow smiled wide enough to stretch the scar on his lip.

"One more again." he said brightly. "Come on, Kiddo."

"You said we could fight today!"

"We _will,_ but you need to do this some more first."

"I _got it_ already." she whined.

Crow flung an arm out between them, the gold on his fingers catching merciless summer sunshine. He lazily called up a little energy, a tiny livewire that barely disturbed the place his eye used to be, and he flicked Phineas on the forehead.

Phineas reeled back, totally off her guard. The point of contact stung like she'd been burned and Crow's yellow command flare splashed out like a fountain, bright enough to sear blue in Phineas' vision as she flinched away. Gideon was still grinning.

"Yeah?" he asked. Phineas groaned, rubbing her forehead.

"I wasn't _ready!_ "

"You ain't gonna have time to _get_ ready if somebody comes at you," Crow said, sliding his hands in his faded black jeans and rocking back on his heels. "You think they're gonna _ask_ if you're ready? You gonna ask them to count down their shot so you can catch it?"

Phineas' brow furrowed and she stood up straighter. She looked a bit too flushed. Crow did not look at the red around her feet.

"Do it again, I'll get it this time," she rasped.

"Nope, you're gonna do your motions until I say good enough."

"No! Again!" she insisted, raising tiny fists to fend him off. Something sparked in her voice that bent Crow's ear, and he felt heaviness settle in his chest. Phineas was going blurry 'round the edges. Crow's eyes, against his better judgement, swept over the teeth marks in her arms. Fresh from this morning.

"I told you you need to be careful throwing out orders, little rooster." He said, with all the natural authority of a man who had wielded it for a lifetime. Maybe some extra. Phineas faltered slightly under his gaze before steeling again, and her own spirit reached out for his. He closed himself off without even thinking about it, like hanging on to a balloon, but the thing that was Phineas was tearing at him with ineffective but determined claws. Crow thought of a kitten with a chew toy and stifled a giggle. She was standing still in front of him, but if he looked hard enough he could see too many eyes, a diagonal with all the wrong colors that ran out through her head in two directions. Her teeth were spilling out and dripped down her face, stuttering in and out of focus near her collarbone.

"You can't be doing this every time you get worked up." Crow said sharply. Maybe he could head this off still.

Phineas' mouth opened but she didn't answer, one short cough scattering a spray of golden feathers, staining the air around them like contagious film negatives. She clutched at her throat where the fresh seam had erupted, bleeding light. It seemed to be flashing from every pore, cracking her skin, much too much too much of _everything_ for such a little thing.

"H-" she said. Aw, Kiddo.

Hmmm this was bad. Crow should be maybe panicking, but panic didn't help anybody, and it's not like she was gonna _die_ like this probably. First thing was to siphon off some of that excess, which he'd been trying to teach her to do herself but. Everyone needs help sometimes.

"Hang on I got you," he said, layering his voice with just enough light to be comforting, hopefully. "keep breathin'."

Phineas coughed again. Crow knelt down and put his hands on her shoulders. They were awful scrawny under his fingers.

"Look this way?" he gently touched the part of her chin that seemed least prone to creeping godhood and tilted her face towards his. He just needed some eye contact, then she'd be fine. He wondered if Jo had made extra dinner.

Well, he tried to, but when Phineas' eyes met his they were like too many tiny stars floating in a cracked dish, and she _screamed_ and Crow Gideon shot backwards like he was hit by a bus.

He was pretty friendly with the experience of being knocked the fuck out, and he'd certainly been down in worse places than the sunflower field in Somershire. He went under thinking gleefully of his pupil's progress.

"Uh oh," said the god-thing in the gravel.

 

* * *

 

Jocasta genuinely, truly never wanted children. She did not care for them, they were like dogs they tore shit up and needed too much attention except children were _worse_ because they had _thumbs._ Usually sticky thumbs. One of the things that she _knew_ was gonna be a pain in the ass about the kid was that people would think she'd changed her mind, like they all said she would. Not that many folks knew her well enough to feel comfortable bothering her for long, but it was obnoxious.

Still, she was a doctor, and a decent goddamn person, and every time she had to pull out the booster seat so Phineas was high enough on the exam table she ached all the way down to her bones. Phin had slouched noticeably as soon as the door closed with Crow in the other room.

"C _ **an YoU-"**_

"Quit tryin' to talk." Jocasta rumbled, reaching out to work the tie from Phin's hair. "You're like to crack my windows."

She stepped around to her back and started to tease out the tresses. For a minute she silently ran her hands through the long hair covering Phineas' back, feeling the pattern of Phin's ribs under her fingertips. Tiny, too-warm. She felt for missed scar tissue with the absent vigilance of an old medic.

"...yes, I can fix it." Jo answered the unasked question quietly. Phineas' breath hitched under her hand and Jo sort of wished Crow was dead. Just an intrusive thought that passed as quickly as it came. She pressed her hand under Phineas' shirt and soothed her palm over her back in a wide arc around where the burns were worse. She pressed flat over the center of the circle. Phineas sniffed and swiped her arm across her nose.

"You just gotta calm down." Jo said gently. "Both of you. You can do it." She breathed a bit of magic, sent it through her fingers and hoped Phin wouldn't notice. It would be better if she thought she could do this on her own.

Phineas seemed too distracted anyway, concentrating on-

"c **AN'T-** "

Jocasta sighed deeply through her nose. She stood up and moved in front of Phineas, her talons clicking on the hardwood floor. The sound of Crow digging through bottles in the kitchen drifted in. She set her hands firmly on Phineas' shoulders.

"Deep breaths kid."

Phineas was actually starting to look a lot better; her skin was still run through with white-light porcelain cracks, and she had too many eyes and looking at her face hurt Jo's head, but it was on the way out now. Phin locked eyes with her and she was reminded viciously of how it was when she'd felt Crow's commanding wash around her, snaking away like tree roots to their targets. Even when it was directed at something else it was hard not to feel the pressure of a false god, and when Crow had really lit up there had been times when Hubris had had to resist dropping at his feet.

Phineas couldn't command a cockroach on a good day; she could barely hold herself together through something as normal as a temper tantrum and she certainly wasn't giving orders right _now_. But looking at her, the light peeking through, Jo felt herself tugged towards the floor _just_ enough for her to notice. Phin was something else entirely.

Jocasta had never regretted Phineas' continued presence; keeping her alive may have been a completely selfish move, something _Jo_ wanted. But Jo had spent enough comfortable years in her own skin to admit to herself she'd had moments, in the clinically detached headspace that let her dig through viscera to save lives, when she had wondered if letting Phineas die would be kinder. Both for Phineas and the rest of the world. Jo thought of what Crow Gideon's protégé might be capable of once she was able to direct her temper against something bigger than a frustrating lesson.

Phineas sniffled, her eyes (just two, again, the green mottled with gold) blurry behind tears she tried ferociously to hang on to. Behind her, one of the bigger divisions in the bedroom window cracked, the small sound like a gunshot in the quiet room. It was like a signal Phineas had been waiting for; she curled up and sobbed the way little ones were so good at, her whole body so full of despair it just _knew_ it could never feel anything else ever again. Jocasta gathered the baby in her arms, natural as breathing, and decided the world that had done this to her could go to hell, actually. It might be about due for a crucible.


End file.
